Hay Festival Nairobi: Exciting times for literature in Kenya

Zoe Flood reports from the Hay Festival Nairobi and talks to Last King Of
Scotland author Giles Foden about some exciting times for the Kenyan
literary world.

Nairobi is a complicated place. Locals and expatriates alike bemoan traffic jams, power cuts and crime, in a city where gleaming shopping malls rub shoulders with shanty towns. Many complain about the lack of a developed cultural calendar. At the same time, it feels like a metropolis on the cusp, with a growing tech scene, lively media and innovative creative people at work.

Bring to this a group of Kenyans who believe in the transformative power of reading and writing, add a band of international and regional literary stars – as well as the clout of the Hay Festival – and you have the fourth annual Storymoja Hay Festival, which concluded yesterday.

In previous years, the festival struggled with a problematic venue – ill-served with utilities and situated next to a park known for late-night criminality.

But this year, the festival came into its own. Big names like Giles Foden, of The Last King of Scotland fame, and Ethiopian-born US author Dinaw Mengestu, described it as creating important cultural momentum in East Africa. "It’s like things [with regard to local publishing] have been locked up in a dusty cupboard,” Foden told The Telegraph. “But with the Storymoja festival, it’s really beginning and it’s a very exciting moment.”

Over the weekend, hundreds of people – from young children bussed in from low-income areas to families and students – meandered between events covering poetry, politics, illustration and, of course, literature.

In a session on contemporary African writing, an audience member pointed out that books are out of reach for many of the city’s residents and writing remains largely the preserve of the middle class.

So too is attending Storymoja – the patched-up clothes of the children from slum academies were in stark contrast to the yoga session in the main courtyard and the well-heeled Kenyans sipping cappuccinos in the chill-out lounge.

But the festival emphasises its role in trying to change that and promote reading for all Kenyans; the organisers regret that fewer children from low-income schools could attend than the previous year.

"We weren’t able to get as much sponsorship from local businesses to bring more kids in,” said author and festival organiser Muthoni Garland.

The potential for Storymoja to have a positive impact beyond elite Nairobi is significant, especially in a country where the educational system is still dominated by rote learning and school and public libraries struggle for cash.

Many describe related attitudes as a continuing barrier. One festival-goer commented: “A lot of Kenyans just don’t value reading so don’t see the point of the festival.”

A university student volunteering as an usher complained that he couldn’t get his friends to come along. “I’m taking so much away from the festival but they are only interested in the bits with cocktails,” he said.

Budding authors in the audience also mentioned their frustrations in getting their work published, with one appealing to Ethiopian-born US author Dinaw Mengestu for advice on how to persevere with his writing.

“In Kenya, we have a chicken and egg situation where there are more writers wanting their manuscripts read and published than there are readers,” said Garland. But authors and organisers are hopeful that the festival will help to nurture publishing ventures in the region.

“That’s the next part, it’s both encouraging people to write but making sure that they have a place to tell their stories,” Mengestu said to The Telegraph. “In order for people to write, they need to have publishers and those publishers need to be in the country.”

This year’s festival also began to recognise the rising importance of alternative storytelling formats, mixing an exuberant performance “stir-up” and graffiti art with more traditional film screenings.

“Narrative and expression here are coming out in things like video… [in] conversations on FM stations. If you put together recordings from FM stations over six months, can you actually argue that’s a kind of novel?” questioned Billy Kahora, author and editor of the Kenyan literary journal Kwani?.

With sustained support, the Storymoja Hay Festival can perhaps harness Nairobi’s sense of creative adventure to help redefine the 21st-century literary festival, reflecting the edginess of its urban host.